Rachel Glaser - Paulina & Fran

Paulina slept at Mystic’s most nights, avoiding campus when she didn’t have class. She found it easy to ignore Fran, even early in the semester when Fran was still fool enough to wave at her in public. Paulina glided by her, thinking, You trimmed my toenails in a past life or You will trim my toenails in the next life . She saluted Julian when she saw him, as if they had served together in a war and she would always have his back.

She did well in her art history classes. She scared the sophomores in her printmaking class. She wasted hours with Sadie and Allison, styling their hair and listening to the trials and triumphs of their lives. When they left town for winter break, Paulina was especially bored. She recorded her orgasms on her computer and played them back for her amusement.

At the start of spring semester, Mystic’s warehouse hosted a party. Paulina wore a sample dress Sadie had made that had one long sleeve and one short sleeve. Mystic’s roommates decorated the main room with Christmas lights and big foam sculptures. Gradually the room filled with Paulina’s classmates. Sadie and Allison arrived and huddled around Paulina while she talked shit about Mystic and his roommates. “They violated a cat yesterday. It was vile. I had to leave.”

“Violated?” Sadie asked.

“They think they’re rock stars, but they’re abandoned children in a never-ending sleepover.”

Despite everything, it still excited Sadie to be around Paulina. Things were revealed around her. People performed. Her curls seemed to contain the natural delight of the universe.

“Your hair looks awesome,” Sadie said.

“Thanks! It’s this new conditioner I—”

They all turned as Fran walked into the party. She was wearing the jumper from SUPERTHRIFT. “Oh my God,” Sadie said, “I love her outfit.”

Paulina shook her head in disbelief. Fran looked stunning, like exceptional things would happen to her.

“Isn’t that, like, a child’s clothing thing?” Paulina said.

“I don’t know what it is, but she can pull it off,” Sadie said. Paulina wished she had ripped the jumper to shreds when she’d had the chance. She met Fran’s eyes and both of them looked quickly away.

The dance floor was barbaric and free. Mystic shined a flashlight over the dancers. Paulina closed her eyes and replayed the compliments she’d received about her hair. She opened her eyes and saw Sadie dancing with Fran. Sadie’s hand caressed Fran’s curls and they danced, flitting around each other like preteens. Paulina raged inside herself. Why couldn’t people stay where she put them? They were always pairing up to destroy her!

“Babe, meet Darlene,” Mystic said. “She’s an art history major too.” Paulina glanced at the slight redhead before her. She had the figure of a pencil.

“Art history is dead,” Paulina said and stormed off to find drugs.

Eileen and Paulina smoked weed in Mystic’s room. A huge Gorgeous Cyclops poster covered a broken window. “Have you ever heard them?” Paulina asked Eileen. She didn’t wait for an answer. “They are the absolute worst band I’ve ever heard. It’s like they’re allergic to melody. They played here for hours last weekend and then they stayed for days and days. They ate all my food.”

Eileen passed the glass piece to Paulina. “Smoking weed makes me feel like an alien,” she said. “Heroin makes me feel like I invented all of this myself.”

Paulina examined her. “What are you, like painting or fashion or what?” Eileen answered, but Paulina was thinking about Fran. Why was Fran imprinted over all her thoughts? It was her face. And that lightness. Fran wasn’t attached to the ground — a wind carried her. No. Fran was just a lonely child the woods had taken pity on. Paulina could picture Fran in the woods in Norway offering Paulina a hit off a glass piece.

Eileen’s mouth was moving. Eileen was laughing. Eileen was wearing the same spandex jumpsuit she’d been wearing last time Paulina saw her. Paulina had a fantasy of her and Eileen taking over the party with force. Burning the bad parts of the warehouse. Falling in love with themselves. “Let’s dance,” Paulina said, pulling Eileen out of the room.

Marvin, Nils, and a bunch of people passed, but Paulina didn’t bother saying hello. The dance floor was full of freshmen girls in flashy clothes. It didn’t make sense. How did they already know how to dress? Paulina gawked at their bodies. They were shameless. How had they heard there was a party? How had they found the warehouse? One had a face tattoo. I bet Face Tattoo does heroin, Paulina thought. Paulina had often longed and failed to do heroin. She danced with little spirit.

Eileen mixed easily with the freshmen. Traitor, Paulina thought. She imagined Eileen doing heroin with Face Tattoo in a room with Oriental rugs and old records. She wondered where Tim was. If he’d ever gotten the picture she e-mailed him over the summer. If he had jerked off to it or deleted it. She imagined Tim in an orgy with the freshmen. Paulina had often longed and failed to be part of an orgy. Once at Smith something had started, but the RA had put a stop to it. Paulina’s arms hung by her side. She watched Fran writhe around in the middle of the floor. Paulina wanted to break into the center with Eileen or Sadie or Face Tattoo and get everyone’s attention.

Surrounded by people ecstatically dancing to Prince, Fran made out with Marvin. Paulina stared at them and felt feverish. She clutched the person next to her, a small girl in a tank top. The girl shook her off. The kiss kept going. Marvin’s hands held Fran’s hair. Her body was pressed against his. Arms and legs blocked Paulina’s view, but every moment she could see some of the kiss.

Julian answered his door wrapped in his quilt. “She’s making out with Marvin,” Paulina said, her eyes flashing with life. His face fell. “At the warehouse party.” She waited impatiently for his sadness to turn to lust.

Julian’s chest was tight. His legs felt hollow. He wanted to close the door on her. Gossip was distasteful to him, and in the middle of the night it seemed petty and hysterical. “Who’s Marvin?”

“You don’t know?” Paulina scoffed.

Fran kissing another boy made no sense to Julian, but what could be expected from either girl? Both snuck off to house parties while he slept.

Paulina pushed past him. She surveyed the room and stood glaring at a new painting — one of Fran’s half-assed attempts. From the beginning, Paulina had been unimpressed with Fran’s paintings. Paulina could see them in the future, hanging crooked in lame coffee shops. She saw them ending up in trash bins outside Chinese restaurants. Garbage men would hold them up to each other and laugh.

Paulina couldn’t decide if she should seduce Julian then and there or save it for when he looked less pathetic. Fran’s presence permeated the room.

“Why are you here?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“I fuck myself in honor of you,” Paulina said.

He shifted his weight. He did not smile. She was wearing those stupid boots again. There was a big tear in her pantyhose, one he bet she’d made on purpose. He could see the shape of her breasts underneath the asymmetrical dress. Still, he could just go back to sleep. He let his quilt drag on the floor. He looked past her defiant sneer to the curls that surrounded it.

“Your hair,” he said. “Your hair looks. .” She knelt before him and felt a rush.

Skipping home after the party, Fran felt an insane feminine power. She imagined herself trying on outfits, and her body making the outfits better. In her own narrow bed, she daydreamed her kiss without Julian’s snoring. Even during the kiss, she’d been daydreaming the kiss. The night had felt like a cool, dark holiday — as if by kissing Marvin she was saying yes to the night. But this would sound weak to Julian, sounded weak to her right now.